Potential sales volume and demand, as well as appropriate pricing policies, for different goods and services are difficult to determine. These determinations become even more difficult when different combinations of goods and/or services are bundled together for sale because buyers and/or sellers may value a combination or set of goods and/or services differently from the sum of their individual values. Attempts to survey the market for all possible combinations of goods and/or services to help with these determinations is prohibitively expensive. As a result, it is difficult for sellers to identify an appropriate good, service, or combination of goods and/or services to sell, at what price, and the expected demand.
One way to determine an appropriate price for a good, service, or combination of goods and/or services is through an auction. Typically, in an auction participants provide bid information about what they are willing to pay for a good, service, or combination of goods and/or services being auctioned by an auctioneer or auction system. In an auction, bid information is collected and is used to determine which participant's bid is finally accepted, typically the highest price bid. The participant whose bid is accepted and the party with the good, service, or combination of goods and/or services being bid on, then exchange the good, service, or combination of goods and/or services at the accepted price.
Accordingly, this auction mechanism effectively determines a price for one good, service, or combination of goods and/or services between a buyer and seller. Unfortunately, this mechanism makes use of only a very limited portion of the submitted bid information, e.g., the highest bid. The remaining portion of the bid information provided by the participants is simply discarded.